Look, Wal-Mart can be hip too (pending approval)
Wal-Mart’s misguided attempt to re-create MySpace: The HUB (where all the Hubsters hang out).
Yeah.
This was a “Build it and they will come” project, and the folks in charge here didn’t think things through. There’s not much functionality to the pages, and almost all the photos/videos that are uploaded are screened first, by Wal-Mart. In fact, if you browse some of the profiles, you’ll see several with a black square and text that reads “Pending Approval.”
On top of that, Wal-Mart has plans to email the parents of every teen, giving that parent power to pull their teen’s submission if they so desire.
Why in god’s name would anyone, let alone a teenager, want to come into this regulated space? Why would they stay? When there are so many other options for peer/community sites out there, Wal-Mart has given its users little incentive to explore, reside or return.
Check out the great article in Advertising Age, with an equally great title: Wal-Mart Tries to Be MySpace. Seriously.
I liked Justin’s assessment of this (“Someone with too much clout and too little vision built this”). He was also quick to point out the last line of the article, and how perceptive users are becoming about online contesting.
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